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Higher Education in a Changing World

Pushing American colleges and universities to transform themselves rapidly into more efficient institutions (“Fixing College,” by Jeff Selingo, Op-Ed, June 26) may well be a growing demand on the part of many of higher education’s constituencies, but to move too fast toward as yet unclear and not yet widely agreed upon results may well be an example of throwing out the baby with the bath water.

The well-documented problems with American elementary and secondary education have caused it to lose standing in the world, especially in comparison to other developed and some developing nations. This is patently not the case with American higher education, whose pluralistic nature and excellent educational and research achievements remain the envy of much of the world. There is a good reason thousands of international students vie for entry into American colleges and universities.

In a career of over 40 years, including as a chief academic officer at three universities, I have also developed a keen understanding of the issues that nevertheless confront us, as well as I hope a small particle of the wisdom needed to keep us from a pell-mell rush into changes based on insufficiently tested assumptions. Hubris should not prevent us from acting; undue haste should not lead us into incompletely charted waters.

FREDERICK F. TRAVIS

Halcottsville, N.Y., June 27, 2012

The writer is provost emeritus at John Carroll University and a consultant to higher education.

To the Editor:

Jeff Selingo characterizes higher education as an “industry” — like journalism and book publishing — that needs to adopt downsizing survival techniques.

The analogy is painful and misplaced. Faculty are not turning out widgets and students are not consumers. And the new data-driven managerial class running colleges and on trustee boards would not be sitting where they are had their education been delivered on the cheap.

SANDI E. COOPER New York, June 27, 2012

The writer is a professor of history at the College of Staten Island and the Graduate School, CUNY.

The result is not only soaring tuition and debt-saddled graduates, but also lower academic quality and rigor. Whereas students in Bangalore and Beijing are burning the midnight oil studying engineering, physics and business, American students increasingly see college as a fun place to spend a few pleasant years in a country-club-like environment.

An abundance of recent research has revealed a proliferation of watered-down courses and majors, unearned high grades and low academic expectations at American colleges. That many students graduate without acquiring the skills and habits of mind needed for successful careers is hardly surprising, nor is the continued outsourcing of American jobs to countries where students have more rigorous training and a stronger work ethic.

JAMES C. GARLAND Santa Fe, N.M., June 27, 2012

The writer is a former physics professor and dean at Ohio State University and former president of Miami University in Ohio. He is the author of “Saving Alma Mater: A Rescue Plan for America’s Public Universities.”

Photo

Credit
Kelsey Dake

To the Editor:

I strongly support the use of technology in education. But I recoil at some of Jeff Selingo’s arguments, like his suggestion that technology can improve student performance. Instead of citing serious studies supporting his claims, he just lists initiatives by various institutions.

Because of budget cuts, the math department where I teach moved from the traditional collecting of written homework and human grading to an online system. But online homework has limited reach: students cannot show their steps. They can only show their final answers or pick among multiple choices. And the system shows only the answers, not the students’ mistakes. Many challenging problems that I would assign from the textbook are unavailable online.

The claim that student performance improves with the use of technology is misleading: Performance will always seem to improve if you lower the standards. And what many of us observed is a serious deterioration of student learning. So, under pressure from the faculty, my department has moved partly back from the online homework system to the traditional one, despite the costs.

Technology in education should enrich student learning, not debase it in a quest for cost-cutting under the pretenses of improved student performance when that entails less challenging course material.

JEAN-PIERRE P. LANGLOIS San Francisco, June 27, 2012

The writer is a professor of applied mathematics at San Francisco State University.

To the Editor:

“Fixing Colleges” adds to the existing confusion about the forces underlying the expansion of graduate education in leading research universities over the last two decades.

The mission of a top university is to prepare students for productive lives in the 21st century. Contrary to Jeff Selingo’s suggestion, graduate education and graduate students do not come “at a great cost” to the core mission of educating undergraduates — they are fundamental to it!

The powerful triad — graduate students, faculty and undergraduates — working together to understand and solve complex problems is one of the greatest strengths of American universities, and it will be this triad that best exploits the opportunities presented by new technologies in research and learning.

LYNNE PEPALL Medford, Mass., June 26, 2012

The writer is dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Tufts University.

To the Editor:

Jeff Selingo’s prescription for “Fixing College” applies to dozens of nonprofit colleges and universities. It does not apply to the bulk of public four-year colleges and universities that serve local populations, have suffered precipitous declines in state support, and have not catered to climbing-wall fads or Division I fantasies.

And his complaints apply not at all to community colleges, which need significantly more resources and technical assistance to improve student outcomes.